I have failed to get more than five hours of sleep a night since November. Enter: the British royals

There are two types of people in the world. Those who close their eyes as soon as they hit the pillow and sleep so soundly you can see the little cartoon “zzzzzzzs” appear above their head. And there are those who stare into the abyss at 3am and confront the emptiness of the human condition against their will, wide awake. Then these people fall in love and share a bed.

Which means one person starts every morning making coffee with a thousand-yard stare, having survived another dark night of the soul. While the person who peacefully slept next to them for seven hours and 50 minutes whinges that they’re “so tired”. All because you “kept the book light on” while you tried to War and Peace yourself back to sleep.

That’s how I turned to audiobooks. I can listen to something that will distract me from my brain’s busy internal Slack channel, plus drown out my partner’s sinuses as they share the night song of their people. Picking the right book was tricky. It had to be about a topic I found boring enough to send me to sleep but not too boring that I would stop listening and start thinking. I have a neurodivergent brain that means I don’t have a lack of attention, just a difficulty in picking where it goes sometimes.

I can usually find interest even in the most uninteresting of items. This is why BBC’s Shipping Forecast – the soothing nautical lullaby favoured by night owls for decades – doesn’t work. I have to know why North Utsire and South Utsire are north seven to gale nine decreasing 7 to 5, squalls moderate. If the presenter has a slight nasal whistle between his British consonants that are so crisp they have iron marks in them, it sets me off down a rabbit hole on Google Images, trying to find out if it’s the result of a deviated septum or stray hairs. Some people’s nocturnal binges only result in waking up beset by regret with a stranger in their bed, which is more socially acceptable and easier to explain than mine, which involves coming-to with a phone in your hand and a Google search history forever besmirched with “BBC Radio presenter close-up photo nostrils”.

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Cillian Murphy would like us all to know that’s just his face. Okay!

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Late at night, instead of shutting down, my brain will whisper, “Hey, remember when you were in grade 4 and you called the teacher Mum? I do!”

In the end I settled on a book about Princess Diana because I liked the voice of the woman reading it, it’s a story I already vaguely know, and because I had forgotten to cancel my Audible membership.

It worked. At least partially. I was dropping off at 3am instead of 4. Lulled into a state of gentle nothingness with details about earls, fox hunting, who gets to be called a royal highness and who doesn’t. These are things I would never have to know about or apply in real life given the street urchin status I hold on the class ladder. I could relax.

But it turns out Princess Di was a gateway drug. Soon I was on to the next book, then the next. I started learning by osmosis. I was walking around in a sleep-deprived stupor forcing facts on my loved one about the Investiture of the Prince of Wales.

My days went like this. Shuffling around Lidl forgetting what I came in for. “Did you know who benefits from the Duchies of Lancaster?” Ordering more under-eye concealer online. “Princess Margaret asked for Swan Lake to be played at her funeral.” Googling “how much melatonin can you take safely in one night?” followed by “what if tall?”

As of now I am banned from talking about the royals and spend my worst nights in a separate bed. That’s something I quite enjoy, even if I’m on a slippery slope to becoming my grandmother, who has both her own room and a fierce loyalty to Lady Di.

Prescription strength sleeping aids are (quite rightly) only permitted for use sparingly by doctors. I’ve tried all the things people who have no problem sleeping insist will help you sleep, like meditation, blue light glasses, avoiding caffeine and all the rest of it. Yet still, late at night, instead of shutting down, my brain will whisper, “Hey, remember when you were in grade 4 and you called the teacher Mum? I do!”

Given the choice I would lean in to my natural nocturnal tendencies. Get work done at 2am, play some squash at 3. Be productive at my most awake. But for some reason we’ve allowed the morning people to get in charge. You know those melts who demand extra pats on the back for doing a task at 6am that could have just as easily been done later in the day. Until we overthrow them and the 9-5 workday, you’re going to have to hear all about Prince Philip’s naval career.